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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27552697">Restoration</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsey8/pseuds/Elsey8'>Elsey8</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Akekita Week 2020 [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Persona 5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Akechi Goro Lives, Domestic Fluff, Every week is akechi goro appreciation week in this household, Falling In Love, Happy Ending, Idiots in Love, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Social Worker Akechi Goro, a new view of canon, i will fill this tag myself thanks, references to suicide but it's not actually talked about</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:22:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,334</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27552697</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsey8/pseuds/Elsey8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Goro has always been a tool, one that has long since lost it's use. Yusuke restores him.</p><p>Akekita Week Day 5: Sword/Shield</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Akechi Goro/Kitagawa Yusuke, Suzui Shiho/Takamaki Ann, mentioned</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Akekita Week 2020 [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2007616</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Akekita Week</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Restoration</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Goro has spent the better part of his life as a tool. Both as a device used for a specific function as well as the second meaning. A stupid, irritating, or contemptible man. He thinks all three could apply to him at one point or another. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Akira called him a gun, once. The silly argument that guns aren’t the ones that do the killing, rather the people behind them pulling the trigger. A way to justify his actions as if that really helped his case whatsoever. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Guns are still dangerous, volatile things. Violent, and used only to hurt. Isn’t it worse, if that’s all he is? A tool used to hurt people? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s rather on the nose, but in that regard, Goro would rather just be called a murderer. There’s no need to say midnight black when black would do just fine. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Shido wasn’t using him, it was everyone else. The Ace Detective was a powerful persona he had to use, but it stuck him in this role of a perfect student, perfect TV personality, and perfect detective. Entirely pleasant, intelligent, and capable. It drained him most days. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>At least in the Metaverse it was more simple. He was just a sword, just a gun, just a tool, nothing but a simple weapon to be used. He didn’t have to think beyond that. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Once he joined the Phantom Thieves for real, it was just as he feared. Another sword to use against their foes, their most powerful one. Buffs running through him he’d cut through enemies like they were actually no more than mere shadows. It was still a less than pleasant feeling.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oddly enough, the cure to such a feeling was to change his own outlook on the situation. Eventually his view of being a sword changed. He was sick of hurting people, but he couldn’t separate himself from the idea of being a tool. For a really long time he wasn’t sure who he would be if not just that. He didn’t know what his purpose was if not to be used by others. It was a sick, and vile truth he didn’t dare speak. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he let himself let go of the idea of being a weapon. That, at least, he could do. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Instead, he became a shield. A tank who could step forward to protect the others, make them feel safe. That eased the bad feeling in his chest to a pressure. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The jokes started after that. It made sense too, Akira could doll out heavy hits and Goro could take them. The Sword and the Shield. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then it happened. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Goro sees the hit going to Yusuke. It probably won’t even down him, it’s not as if he’s weak to it. It’s not as if he’s already injured. Goro knows it’s stupid to get in the way, to interfere. He doesn’t know if it’ll knock him down, take him out of the fight. He shouldn’t move to protect Yusuke, but he does anyway. He doesn’t think to do it, he just does. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The hit sends him sprawling across the floor, groaning. It takes him down for the count, and all he can do is watch through blurry vision as Yusuke’s katana glints as he draws it. Someone is healing him, but all he can focus on is how Yusuke absolutely tears apart the enemy. It’s overkill, he should just finish it, but he’s toying with it as if to prolong its suffering. His finishing blow is a clean beheading, and he sheaths the weapon. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just like that, the fight is over. It’s Yusuke who comes over to help him up. Through the narrow eyes in his mask, Goro reads something like worry in his gaze. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The jokes change. Now Yusuke is the Sword. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Down to the very end of things, those are the roles they fill. They become a rather dangerous duo, covering each other and forming that combination of a protector and a weapon. For once, Goro is just happy he isn’t the weapon. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then he dies. Well, he thought he would. He thought he did. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he wakes up in a rehab center, and there he stays for a handful of seasons. But after a little less than a year has passed, as it’s turning autumn again, he gets out. It feels like he’s just gotten out when Akira bumps into him in the street and he’s dragged back into things. But the Metaverse is gone, his revenge has been carried out, there’s nobody left to use him. He feels without purpose, and he thinks that if Akira hadn’t dragged him back to Leblanc...well he may have done something rather stupid. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He moves in with Yusuke, half because he’s in love with him but mostly because he thinks that if anyone can bring him back from this it would be him. Yusuke has always had that sort of effect on him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s right.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yusuke starts to sketch him a lot. Paint him. Use him as a subject, or use symbolism to paint him without actually painting him. Goro becomes something he never expected to become, the muse to an artist. Finally, he has another purpose. It settles him easily.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Until they have the conversation. The one that changes everything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you,” Goro says one day.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“For what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yusuke is painting him. His brush paints individual strands of Goro’s hair, twisting around each other in a perfect imitation. It’s not an uncommon image.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh don’t make me explain,” Goro dismisses, sitting still so Yusuke can study him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m afraid I truly don’t know what you’re talking about.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know. Giving me a purpose again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How so?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Using me as a muse. It makes me feel useful again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Apparently, that’s not the right thing to say. Yusuke freezes. His brush, which has been repeating the same motion for nearly a half hour finally stills. He turns, eyes searching. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Goro winces, pressing himself back against the couch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You think I’m using you?” Yusuke asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And it’s ridiculous, but he sounds so hurt that Goro hurts just hearing it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No. </span>
  <em>
    <span>No</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but in a way you are and I </span>
  <em>
    <span>need</span>
  </em>
  <span> that,” Goro explains. “It makes me feel...good. Like you want me around for something. I don’t know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Goro you don’t need to be useful for me to keep you around. I keep you around because you’re you. I enjoy your company, I like you as a person. It has nothing to do with using you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Goro should know that. But he didn’t. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And that changes everything. The idea that he doesn’t need to be useful to be wanted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He thought the two couldn’t exist without one another, and learning that they could and did...it changed his life.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yusuke doesn’t paint him for a while. As if he’s proving a point by not doing it. He paints landscapes instead, or more abstract pieces. He doesn’t let Goro lift a single finger around the house either. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s brought breakfast in bed, had the dishes washed for him, Yusuke even does his laundry several times. He does all the cleaning, and eventually gets a little better at cooking seemingly from sheer force of will. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Finally Goro insists it’s okay. He gets it now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And admits he likes when Yusuke paints him anyway. Because it makes him feel special, the real reason in the first place.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yusuke goes back to spending hours painting individual strands of his hair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eventually they sort their feelings out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dating Yusuke is a different experience when he tries to compare it to everything else in his life. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Goro had something with Akira. In the end he thinks they were two Swords that tried to clash too often. He never hated Akira, but it hurt to see someone who had everything he wanted. To be so beneath him, but have so much more. There’s a reason Goro had the strength to shoot him and it had nothing to do with being a weapon.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Goro is friends with Ann, he thinks. He hopes so. They go out when they can for sweets, and she really likes to gossip. She travels often for her work now, but she always ends up home and she always spends time with him when she is. She’ll tell him about the places she’s visited, the people she met, complain a bit about work, gossip about her coworkers. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’ll tell her about his own cases, about his favorite kids(which he denies having), and how he and Yusuke are doing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She and Shiho are always doing good, and asking about them only leads to Ann gushing about her wife for hours.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Goro thinks Sojiro is also like his dad. He often gets invited for dinner, and he’s been roped into helping at Leblanc more than once, which he’s been told is basically the same as adoption. Goro doesn’t have the highest opinion of father figures, but Sojiro is an exception.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sae is his mentor, and she always will be someone who encourages him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Goro has made a point to form relationships in his life now that he feels he can. But Yusuke is like none of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Goro loves Yusuke. And he’s so lucky that Yusuke loves him back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And in the end, that’s all that matters to him. That’s all he needs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then Yusuke is painting him. He’s dotting freckles across his face because he already finished the hair. It’s going to be a painting of Goro and Akira playing chess, but Yusuke always starts with Goro.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Goro is looking through a case file for a new family he’s going to be working with. The mom is going through a rough patch in life, and she and her son just need a little support as they get through it. It’s not too complicated, but it hits a sore spot in him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yusuke hums softly while he works, and it calms Goro as he reads through the file. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s comfortable, familiar. And it’s all Goro has ever wanted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then he looks up and Yusuke is on one knee.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yusuke—“</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Goro.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Goro quiets. He sets his paperwork aside, frazzled. Yusuke is on one knee. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He pulls out a ring box, and Goro presses his hands over his mouth and immediately starts to cry.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This will be embarrassing if it isn’t what he thinks it is. But it has to be. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He...he never thought he’d ever want to get married before. He always saw it as a trap, as something society came up with so people could be legally useful for each other. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he wants this. He wants to call Yusuke his husband. It just wasn’t something that had ever crossed his mind, or he’d have proposed ages ago.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yusuke flips the box open, revealing something entirely simple. It’s a silver band with a single diamond. It’s not too big, but it clearly didn’t come cheap either. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Goro says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have a speech, you know,” Yusuke huffs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t need to hear it. Yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can I make it anyway?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you must.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You saved me,” Yusuke murmurs. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yusuke laughs, shaking his head. He takes one of Goro’s hands from his mouth with his free one. He squeezes tightly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m getting there,” he reminds him. “You saved me, and I don’t mean when you jumped in front of me protecting me from blows in the Metaverse. I mean...you actually saved me. I wasn’t in a good place after the Metaverse collapsed and we all went our separate ways. I’d learned to rely on the presence of others, and in the absence of it I wasn’t doing well.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And then I came back?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And then you came back, seemingly from the dead. You appeared to me in Leblanc, a visage of a man I had loved and lost. As if an Angel, coming to lend me salvation.” Yusuke’s voice is reverent as he speaks, moving now to wipe Goro’s tears away. “You were my shield again. From myself, this time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Goro leans into the touch, bringing a hand up to lay over Yusuke’s.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But you’re the one who saved me,” he whispers back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We saved each other,” Yusuke corrects. “Isn’t that beautiful? I know we were always the Sword and the Shield, but I think we did our fair amount of both.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We did. But now we don’t have use for those titles. The Metaverse—“</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The Metaverse had nothing to do with us protecting one another. You are ever my faithful Shield, my love. As I will always be your Sword.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ask me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought you didn’t need to be asked.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ask me anyway. Please.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Goro Akechi, will you marry me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yusuke takes the ring out of the box and hands it to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Put it on me,” Goro demands, trying to give it back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I will! Look at it first, dear.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Goro rolls his eyes but he inspects it diligently anyway. That’s when the engraving on the inside of the band.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>My Shield, </span>
  </em>
  <span>it reads in Yusuke’s wonderful handwriting. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It seems Goro’s widened eyes are what Yusuke is searching for. He takes it back and slides it on Goro’s ring finger.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you’d like to get me a matching one—“</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do. Refer me to the jeweler this instant.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yusuke laughs, kissing his ring and then his lips.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright. Only because you insisted.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Goro knows one day he will wear out his usefulness. There will come a day he’s utterly useless. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There already have been days, sometimes several, where he feels as if he’s done nothing. As if he’s not worth a single thing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he knows Yusuke has and will continue to love him no matter what. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Which makes him all the happier to continue being someone who can protect Yusuke in his eyes, even if it is from himself. Especially then.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And if their wedding cake toppers are a sword and a shield rather than something more traditional...well everybody seems to love it anyway.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I had a longass day at work but here this is lmao. I LOVED this one. I love when Goro gets spoiled, obviously--</p></blockquote></div></div>
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